Earlier in 2005 we bought a 2005
Toyota Prius hybrid. There is certainly lots of information on the Prius
on the web, but I thought I would just pass on our reactions after the first
10,000 miles.

The Jelly-Bean Car:

We were listening to Car Talk one
morning, and Tom and Ray were trying to tell a caller that a Prius would
probably be a good choice for him. His response was something like "yea,
but it looks like a jelly-bean". Ever since we have called the Prius the
Jelly-Bean car -- what a nice association!

Pro and Cons:

In summary, we Love It.
We are not alone in this. In the latest owner survey of new cars
by Consumer Reports, the Prius got the best overall buyer satisfaction rating of
any car (90%).

Pros:

It gets great gas mileage -- its
amazing to pull into a gas station after driving 400 miles, and fill up on 8
gallons!

It is a very comfortable highway
cruiser. The seating is good, ride comfortable, and it is the quietest
car I have ever owned.

Its fun to drive.

It has plenty of room for 4 people
(or two people and big dog :-)

I like the gadgets. I'm an
engineer, and I like the feedback that the LCD panel gives on "Energy" and
"Consumption".

It does not feel small, as we
feared it might.

Everyone likes to drive it.
We also have a Honda Pilot SUV which cost a good deal more than the Prius and
now just mostly sits in the driveway.

It lowers pollution and greenhouse
gas emissions, which I feel good about.

It handles mountain pass driving
well (this was one of our concerns before buying).

Cons:

It's a little bit marginal on
luggage space, but this has not really been a problem so far. You can
get a roof top luggage rack for it.

The view out the rearview
mirror is a bit distorted by by very flat slope of the rear deck window.

Toyota does not recommend towing
with a Prius at all. It would be nice if a small trailer could be pulled to
get a sheet of plywood or whatever.

It is not an AWD, so in the depths
of winter the Pilot will still be needed after a snow.

To be honest, I really had trouble
coming up with the cons -- there is just not much to dislike about the car.

Mechanical:

We have had no mechanical or other
problems with the car so far. The only maintenance has been the 5000 mile
oil changes.

One of the concerns about buying the
car was its mechanical complexity, but the long warrantee on the hybrid parts
got us over that.

There has also been a lot of talk
about the expense of replacing the battery pack, and how long the battery pack
will last. I have seen thinks on the internet as nutty as "it has to
be replaced every 2 years and it costs $12000". As far as I can determine,
Toyota designs the battery pack to last the life of the car. The 150,000 mile
warrantee they provide in some states would tend to confirm this.
While I have not asked the dealer what the replacement cost would be, the most
authoritative estimate I have read says its $3000. I expect this will go
down some over time as the battery pack product gets more efficient with higher
volume production. A statement on the battery from the Toyota site:

How long does the Prius battery last and what is the replacement cost?

The Prius battery (and the battery-power management system) has been
designed to maximize battery life. In part this is done by keeping the battery
at an optimum charge level - never fully draining it and never fully
recharging it. As a result, the Prius battery leads a pretty easy life. We
have lab data showing the equivalent of 180,000 miles with no deterioration
and expect it to last the life of the vehicle. We also expect battery
technology to continue to improve: the second-generation model battery is 15%
smaller, 25% lighter, and has 35% more specific power than the first. This is
true of price as well. Between the 2003 and 2004 models, service battery costs
came down 36% and we expect them to continue to drop so that by the time
replacements may be needed it won't be a much of an issue. Since the car went
on sale in 2000, Toyota has not replaced a single battery for wear and tear.

I have kept track of every drop of
gasoline that has gone into the car, and the overall total gas mileage

is right at 50mpg. This
includes city driving, highway driving, and quite a bit of mountain driving.
The best mileage on a tank of gas was 56mpg, and the worst was 47mpg. If
you think this mileage sounds to high to be true, take a look here:
http://www.hybridcars.com/2005-mileage-study.html

At $2.80 per gallon, this represents
a saving of 276 gallons or $770 over the US average gas mileage of 21mpg
(coincidentally, it is the same same saving over the Honda Pilot that we would
be driving if we weren't using the Prius). At this rate, I
expect to recoup the $1000 to $2000 extra that the Prius cost over an equivalent
Camry in not much more than a year. I think that's amazing.
This may turn out to be the best investment I have ever made.

Gary

9/29/05

Winter update -- 1/4/2006:

Our gas mileage has dropped off to an
average of 47 MPG on the last 3 tanks, which have been winter driving. I
think this may be due to changing over to winter snow tires on all four wheels.
It may also have something to do with the colder temperatures (although I don't
understand why). This is not a big deal, but I just thought I would
pass it along.

The Prius drives fine on the snow.
The only time we revert to the Pilot is in the period following heavy snows,
where the greater ground clearance and AWD of the Pilot can helpful.

Another Update -- 7/23/2007:

We are just over 40,000 miles now.
No problems -- still very happy with our Prius, and we still use if for 90% of
our driving.

By my numbers, it has already paid
off the extra we paid for the hybrid features in saved gasoline. How
I come to this conclusion is
explained here.
By estimate, we have reduced our energy consumption by about 48,000 KWH (1300
gallons of gasoline), cut our greenhouse gas emissions by about 12 tons of CO2,
and saved us nearly $4000 in gasoline bills. This all compared to
driving the Prius instead of our Honda Pilot.

In
our program to cut our total energy
use and green house gas emissions in half, the Prius has been BY FAR the most
effective single project -- its amazing.

We have been having very hot weather
here in Bozeman (100F+), and we do find that the gas mileage drops down to about
48 mpg under these conditions (lots of AC on time). We recently did a road
trip to Seattle and got a grand average of 54 mpg with the cruise control set at
69 mph.

Another Update
-- May 31, 2008:

We have 55,086 miles on the Prius.

No problems of -- still very happy
with our Prius, and we still use if for 90% of
our driving.

The only repair since the last update
was replacing a burned out tail light and routine oil changes.

Looking down the mileage notebook
since 40,000 miles,

Worst tank of gas: 42.5 mpg
driving through some really awful weather

Best tank of gas: 60.1 mpg in
mixed use (next best was 55.3 on road trip to Spokane)

Overall average since last
update: 49.68 mpg

In contrast to the sometimes heard
statement that hybrids don't do well on the highway, we get our best gas mileage
on the highway. I usually cruise at 70 mph (speed limit here in MT is 75
mph).

With gas nearing $4 per gallon, a
fillup after driving 400 miles has gone up to about $30, but that's a whole lot
better than the $80 I put into our "small" SUV the other day to drive less than
400 miles (we drive SUV very little now -- but its still needed occasionally to
haul lots of people or for bad bad snow).

We have decided to get a Yakima or
Thule style roof rack for carrying odd size stuff and trips to the lumber yard.

Its always seemed to me that some
places in estimating how long it takes to payback the extra up front cost for a
Prius in saved gasoline really stacked the deck against the Prius. They do
things like comparing the Prius it to a Corolla, when its actually closer to a
Camry in size.

Well, here is a calculation from the
Toyota Open Road Blog -- a source that is no doubt biased in the other
direction.

Comparing these two cars, and using
$4 per gallon gas it takes 0.1 year for the Prius to pay back the $97 in initial
price in saved gas.

I suppose this is a bit silly, but I
liked it :)

Update: May 10, 2010

Just a quick update.

We are at 94,200 miles.

No problems -- no maintenance outside
of routine oil changes.

We just had the throttle pedal recall
done yesterday. They cut an inch off the end of the pedal, updated some
software, and checked the floor mats.

Turns out if we had been smart enough
to take out the factory mats and put in the aftermarket ones that we bought to
keep the Montana mud off the factory mats, that they would have included free
new factory mats -- as it was, the factory mats passed their inspection and we
got nothing -- bummer!

I do think that our gas mileage has
dropped a bit. I've not been keeping track of it for every gallon of gas
as I used to (much to the relief of my wife), but it seems like we have more
tanks in the 46 mpg area and less up in the 48 mpg area. This may be old
age, but I also suspect that the last set of tires, which were not picked with
any consideration for rolling resistance has something to do with it. Hard
to complain much about this.

When we went in for the recall, the
dealership had 2010 with the solar and sunroof option on the floor. It
looked to be very nicely done, but its hard to get worked up about it with its
several thousand dollar option price. I'm thinking seriously about the
plug-in hybrid model (or another plug-in hybrid) when it comes out. I have
space to add more PV, so I could have a no carbon car for around town.

Update:
September 2, 2010 -- 100K miles

We just went over 100,000 miles on
the Prius.

No problems throughout the first 100K
miles.

We were on a short trip down to West
Yellowstone when the odometer went over 100K. Gas miles per gallon for
that tank was 50.5 mpg, so its still doing well on fuel economy.

I know -- we drive too much. I
guess if we could get the kids to move out from California to Montana we could
cut down the miles a lot :)

October 2010 --
Final Update on our 2005 Prius -- the Jelly-Bean Car

- For the full 101K miles the
only maintenance on the car was: oil changes, tires, and one alignment (big
pothole).

- The car was running fine at
101K, and we just traded it in because the we had heard good things about
the refinements in the 3rd generation Prius, and Toyota and our dealer were
offering some incentives, and there was a nice blue one with quite a bit of
extra markdown because of some very minor scratches on the door -- blue
being Joan's favorite color.

- We got what I would call a
descent
trade-in price for the old Prius.

The 3rd generation Prius has been
widely described as a refined version of the generation 2 Prius. I'd
say that is correct. There are a number of small improvements in noise
level, comfort, power, fuel economy, ... nothing spectacular in any
area, but significant when taken together. The new Prius is indeed a
pleasant car to drive and live with.

We already have 1700 miles on the new
one (a trip up to Alberta). The fuel economy improvement is
noticeable -- our average so far is 52.4 mpg. Other than that,
I'd say the somewhat better seat comfort and the lower cabin noise level (its
very quiet) are probably the most noticeable changes. The only
disappointment has been the GPS, which was a pricey option, and which we find
less competent than the add -on Garmin we were using on the 2005.

The new Jelly bean in Alberta

It is interesting to note how things
have changed relative to the Prius over the 5 years. since 2005.
When we got the 2005, we basically put our name on the dealers waiting
list, and were given the opportunity to pay full MSRP for a random Prius that
came in after about a month of waiting. If you asked about getting a Prius
in a color you wanted and with the options you wanted, the salesman just
laughed.

At that time there were only two
other Priuses in Bozeman -- we would wave at each other when we saw them.
Buying the Prius was deemed by many to be seriously risky -- knowledgeable
technical people talked about the certainty of early battery failure and all
sorts of other problems. It seems strange to hear this now given the very solid
reliability record the Prius has stacked up, but these were serious concerns 5
years ago.

Buying the 2005 Prius (for us)
was some combination of 1) wanting to save fuel money, 2) our Half Program to
cut energy use and CO2 emissions in half, 3) taking a bit of risk to support the
development of more efficient cars. I've talked to other Prius
owners with about the same mix of reasons.

Now, in 2010, there are a couple
million Priuses out there -- I see many of them driving around even here in
Bozeman, which is more of a muddy pickup town. I believe that to many car
buyers, the Prius is no longer any kind of "special" car -- its just another car
that costs a bit more than other cars the same size, but saves a lot of money in
fuel costs. Its joined the ordinary mix of cars as a practical,
family car -- I guess this is a good thing. Of
course the car has hardly changed at all -- its people's perceptions that have
changed.

The dealer had a dozen of the new
Prius on the lot, and between the Toyota company $1000 off and the dealer now being
willing to "deal" a bit, the prices were pretty reasonable. If you wanted
a particular combination of color and options, there is a pretty good chance
they can find it.

Before we decided to get another
Prius, we looked around for a car that was in somewhat the same position now as
the Prius was 5 years ago. Something that pushed the car efficiency
frontier a little further out while still being practical to use as our main
car. We did not find anything. There are a couple electric cars (e.g.
the Leaf), but they are just not practical when you live in MT and the grandkids
are in CA. The Chevy Volt is a bold step, but, the price premium is
a little steep for us. Some of the other plug in hybrids would have been
of interest (including the Prius) if they had been coming out sooner. Cars
like the Aptera (which I like a lot) seem just a bit too far out there.

But, it does seem to be an active
time in car development, and there does seem to be real interest in improvements
-- I hope it all continues.

Even after all this time, the Prius
still stands out as quite an engineering achievement -- the only 50 mpg
production car available, and a very practical car that is mid-sized at that.
The combination of the low drag, relatively light weight, energy saving
accessories, and the hybrid drive train with the Atkinson engine still (to me)
stand out as the combination to beat.

Economics:

I believe that the 2005 Prius
was cheap to own when you consider fuel costs. I think that we paid about
$22K for it, and traded it in for just over $7K (with 101K miles and a few
dings). If you throw in the $10.3K of fuel saving (see above), the rough
cost for 5 years was (22K - 7K -$10.3K) = $5K. Five cents a mile.
Pretty inexpensive by today's standards. If we had kept it to 200K miles
the net cost would likely have been zero based on the fuel savings :)
Of course, the fuel savings are compared to driving a 20 mpg Pilot (our other
car), and than may seem unfair, but its the situation we are in. We
are not alone in this -- I've seen people go from 14 mpg pickups to a Prius.

I don't plan on keeping this page
going for the new Prius unless something out of the ordinary happens.

Gary

Updated Oct 8, 2010

May 2014 --
Road Trip Mileage On the 2010 Prius

We did a road trip through the southwest and I kept careful track of gas mileage over the full trip, and just thought I would pass it on here.

So, this is the blue 2010 Prius in the picture above. The total trip was 2274 miles with generally good weather. Some tail winds and some head winds -- a dash of snow.

There is also a bit of data at the bottom on how the Prius compared on a passenger miles per gallon data with some other modes of transportation.

The 2010 Prius has been doing fine -- no problems or maintenance items other than the usual oil changes.

Actual Fuel Usage on Road Trip Through the Southwest

Place

gallons

miles

Actual mpg

Prius gage mpg

gage/actual

Bozeman

0

0

Salt Lake

362

6.84

52.92

Moab

299.8

5.7

52.60

56.3

1.07

Flagstaff

402.3

8.16

49.30

50.3

1.02

Tuba City

142

2.3

61.74

60.1

0.97

Ceder City

247.5

5.12

48.34

50.9

1.05

Garden City

377.8

6.7

56.39

57.4

1.02

Driggs

256.2

4.825

53.10

56.3

1.06

Bozeman

186.5

3.56

52.39

55.3

1.06

Totals

2274.1

43.205

52.64

Total cost

$151.22

at $3.50 per gallon

Carbon

846

lbs of CO2

(or 0.44 tons)

Actual mpg is calculated for each fillup based on miles on trip odometer and gasoline pumped.

Prius gage mpg is what the Prius computer calculated for each fillup.

Comparison to Some Other Vehicles

Vehicle

mpg

pax mpg

Prius

52.6

105.3

(two adults with no credit for carrying the dog)

Ford Expedition

18

36

(two adults)

airplane

0.43

41.7

(737 next gen with 97 pax onboard -- gasoline equivalent)

train

230

?? from the ref eyeball average of a few trains -- gasoline equivalent